Even More 3D Print Painting

I am going to apologize in advance, as this is a long post, covering 7 models (6 designs). I was going to split it into two posts, but couldn’t decide on where to break it up so… it’s all in one, and it’s a big one!

All 3D models featured are designed by Kijai (Jukka Seppänen) and I have included links to where they can be downloaded. Some are free and some are paid.

Before I begin, as I’ve been getting a few questions about the paints that I use, I just want to say that I don’t use fancy or expensive paints. I primarily use generic tube acrylic paints that I’ve paid on average £2 for (per tube) and I mix a lot of my own colors. Most of the metallics I use are by Decoart and cost between £2 and £3 a bottle. They need to be shaken quite a lot to achieve their full potential, but they are so smooth and beautiful, and these little bottles have lasted me for YEARS.

I’m really happy with how all of the paint jobs came out, but I’m going to start with the Skull Island because it was designed based on a random idea I’d sketched out and sent off to Kijai.

There are a lot of delightful little details in Kijai’s models and this one is no exception. My favorite detail about this particular model is the beach on the left hand side with the stone arch. To me the beach sort of helps begin to tell the story though the model as your eyes travel through it. I’ve debated making a tiny boat for it.

I primed the skull island model with a layer of grey acrylic. There are plenty of textured lumps and bumps in the design, but I used my “glopping” method to add some additional texture. To be honest, glopping is just me being lazy about painting when I’m stuck for ideas as I can let the natural mix of the black and white do a lot of the work for me until I decide on a direction to go in.

After that I did several layers of shading on the stone parts and painted the beach and lake a sandy color.

Once that was all completely dry, I dry brushed on the green areas and mixed some blue into the water.

Then I added in the white on the waterfalls and did some more shading washes all over.

Lastly I used real sand to fill in the sandy parts and mixed some resin (first time trying this) to pour into the water parts to add the shiny water effect. Some of the resin got away from me when I poured it into the top as there was a hole in the nose that I wasn’t aware of and it leaked down the front of the skull a bit, but I went back in after it was dry and repainted those areas to get rid of the shine. I also added in a tiny bit of foliage with a mix of different shades of green nail flocking fluff and clump foliage “bushes”. The sand is laced with tiny broken bits of shell which adds some cool texture. I wasn’t sure how it would be when I bought it, but I like the effect!

Click any of the thumbnails below to view more full size photos of this model.

I’ve got two of these because my husband has still been trying to calibrate his other printer so I end up with duplicate models.

The good printer for some reason completely chewed up most of the mushrooms on one of the models, so the one that is more accurate is actually from the crappier printer, However I like them both and I like the extra texture that the crappy printer inadvertently added into the second model!

We scaled this model down a fair bit because I like my models on the small side and as a result there is a slight imperfection (hole) on both of the doors (top left). Kijai does note on the download page that scaling down the model can be risky for it printing properly. I was going to repair the defect on the prints manually, but the hole grew on me, sort of like the door was made from a piece of found wood.. adding to the story and personality of the piece. Happy accidents :D

Click any of the thumbnails below to view more full size photos of the grassy version.

Anyhoo… I wasn’t sure how I was going to paint these to make them different from one another before I remembered that I had some model snow to try out. That actually worked out pretty well to use on the model where most of the mushrooms were missing!

They’re both primed and painted with many layers of acrylics. Utilizing both washes and dry brush techniques in order to achieve the final result.

Oh, and bonus… the mushrooms, lanterns and walkway on the grassy model glow in the dark! :o

Click any of the thumbnails below to view full size photos of the snowy version.

Next I’ll talk about the model that I bought the snow flocking powder for in the first place. It’s another Moon City!

This one took a long time to pull together. After I finished the first two moon cities, my husband suggested that it would be cool to do a red and white striped festive Santa’s village version. I couldn’t quite pull off his vision without it looking tacky and awful though, so I improvised my own festive version.

It was primed in grey, then I painted the snow in white and I did the background in black/dark blue with the earth detail carefully worked in. . The stars were made by loading up a toothbrush with silver paint and flicking the bristles at the model very carefully. I suppose they could also be interpreted as falling snow.

Next I added in purple shadows on top of the white painted snow in preparation for the fluffy flocking powder going on top.

The buildings are painted red with gold detail and dry brushing. There was a building on the front left that I snipped off with some pliers to make room for the tree.

The tree was a bit too big to start so I trimmed it down a fair bit to fit into place. It was part of some Christmas bauble decorating fodder at our local craft store. Ideally I wanted a green one, but they were sold out for weeks and they’re really awful at restocking things, so I settled on the white.

It took me a few evenings to glue in all of the white snow. I used a layer of PVA applied with a paintbrush and tweezers to to get the application precise. There isn’t any snow on the stairs as it would have obliterated them.

My keyboard is still covered in white fluff. It gets everywhere!

The last thing I did was apply the tiny tufts of green and red berry bushes to make some festive garlands and the tree is topped with a sparkly bead.

As with my previous moons, I kept the outside a dull, boring grey so that the focus was all on the middle, like a delightful, festive, sparkling geode that has been cracked open.

Click any of the thumbnails below to view more full size photos of this model.

This is a hollow model with a removable cap for installing lights inside. I haven’t gotten around to that part yet, but I do plan to do something about lighting it up when I get a chance.

The really pronounced stones on the base make it a lot of fun to paint as very little effort can create a really beautiful and natural looking effect.

I primed this one in black so that I could work as much shadow as possible into the crevices of those stones. Next I brushed in layers of greys and painted the tower all over in a maroon color leaving the windows flat red. Then I did the copper details and dry brushed copper all over the tower. Once that was completely dry I dry brushed some layers of green green on the stones, tower and roof. Lastly I added in a bit of brown and silver detail.

I used a bit of nail flocking powder to make sporadic moss patches on the stones and I glued in a few tufts of bushes (clump foliage)… I even made a weird little climbing plant up the back :D

Click any of the thumbnails below to view more full size photos of this model.

These last two models don’t have a lot of added bits, but the paint jobs took quite a while as there are a lot of layers in there.

The Pumpkin Hut was primed and then painted with a layer of light orange. Next I applied a dark brown wash to all of the crevices on the body of the pumpkin. Once that was dry, I sort of dry(ish) brush-blended in the medium orange into the wedges between crevices. Then I added in the highlights on top. On the leaves, door and windows I painted layers of acrylic with dry-brushed highlights. As a finishing touch I dry brushed on a TINY bit of gold all over to give it a bit of of fairy sparkle.

Lastly I applied a bit of lichen to the window boxes with PVA.

This is another hollow model, so a battery operated tealight can be placed inside to light up the windows. :)

Click any of the thumbnails below to view more full size photos of this model.

The final model that I’m going to cover today is the most recent of this post in terms of release time and it’s the Fortress of the Crescent.

It can be printed solid, or hollow so that a light can be put inside to illuminate the windows.

My crescent is printed far smaller than its intended size because, as I’ve mentioned previously… I like tiny models, and it was printed hollow as well. The hollow part worked out just fine with the smaller size, however there were a couple of holes due to the file being scaled down as it’s not designed to be scaled down.

There was one hole on the fortress and holes on the footpaths of all of the bridges. The arches of the bridges printed beautifully, and there were some crossway supports along the footpath bits, but they were full of holes, so all I needed to do was fill in the holes.

You would never be able to tell now on the finished model that there were any holes because I made PVA grafts for them. I don’t know if this is a done thing anywhere else, but it’s a real life-saver when there are dodgy little holes in your 3D print, so I’ll explain what I did.

(I know I should have taken more photos, but I didn’t… If I end up with another holy model, I’ll do a whole post about hole patching. Promise.)

First I applied a pea sized amount of PVA to the back of my hand. Next I smoothed it out in an even layer that was about 1.5×1.5 inches and I allowed it to dry. Then I carefully peeled it off so that I had a thin, slightly gross looking, skin printed sheet of PVA.

You know what I mean, we’ve all done it.. though probably not to serve any practical purpose. :)

Anyhoo… I folded it in half and then cut tiny strips out of it with scissors and applied the tiny strips to the model with liquid PVA in a couple of layers. They moulded to the model perfectly and dried hard. Then I painted over the patches, and you’d never know they were patched. TAH DAH!

I wasn’t sure how to paint this one as there is so much going on in it that I didn’t really want to dress it up with any additional modelling materials. I decided to attempt an oil slick paint job using metallic paints and this started with painting the “natural stone parts” with metallic blue paint (after the primer layer). Next I added some black washes into some places to darken them up a bit. Once that was all dried I went in and dry brushed multiple layers of metallic purple and green. Then I decided it needed some lighter blue, so I went in with silver, let that dry, and dry brushed blue on top, which made brighter blue patches… then I went in a few more times with more layers in various parts to get the effect I was going for.

The castle parts were painted silver with a black wash put over to darken the crevaces, then metallic purple was dry brushed in over the silver.

The whole thing looks so cool in person. I am really surprised that I pulled it off at all if I’m completely honest. I’m just really annoyed that I can’t get it to photograph accurately… but such is life. :)

Click any of the thumbnails below to view more full size photos of this model.

Now I’m temporarily out of models to print however I’m sure that will change very soon! Apologies again for this being so long winded. :D